Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Hi there! First of all, I hope my readers who're also in the U.S. weathered Hurricane Irene safely this past weekend. With high winds, torrential rains, and the government preemptively declaring our region an emergency zone, the boy and I stocked up on supplies and hunkered down as best we could. Seems luck was on our side seeing as I'm still writing this now =). Hope you all had a similarly harm-free experience...

With these natural disturbances over with (I hope), I'm happy to continue my favorites series with fresh photos and another photography exercise. This week I suggest you focus on the principle of movement in the composition of these and other food photos. As discussed in my earlier photography post, positioning interesting elements in a way that guides the viewer's eyes through your photo will make anyone's experience more enjoyable and exciting. I've reposted some examples of this from my own work above. The yellow lines highlight some potential paths your eyes might take as they move across my photos. But remember that movement doesn't necessarily need to be in straight lines between objects. There are also times when you may not want as much movement in your photo, such as when you want to highlight your subject very dramatically by itself. As always I wish you Happy "Reading"!

Hi Xiaolu! Thanks for sharing these beautiful pictures as always. I've been wondering lately how come some photographers don't necessarily show the object clearly? Like Tomato cobbler and grapes above. We want to know about the main food but it's kind of hard to see what it is as if they are not the main object. Tomato one for example, I can't really see what it is (main object being so small) or grapes color is more blend in with background. What are the intentions behind in these pictures?? Is it more important sometimes the whole styling is more important than the main food (recipe) itself? I'm just curious what you think... :-)

Hi Nami! Great question -- I think I get your meaning about the grapes. For the tomato cobbler, perhaps it is due to a cultural familiarity but I found it quite recognizable. In fact, I think Hannah probably used cherry tomatoes partly to make the cobbler more recognizable as containing tomatoes and it's fairly centrally positioned in the photo. As for the grapes, I suppose it's not the central focus of the photo. But I think this type of photo is meant more as a still life capture of a moment than as so-called food porn. Now that I think about it, I'm not quite sure what the purpose of the knives are (to cut the grapes?) but as I've written before I think there are many types of beautiful food photographs that can differ depending on what the "story" you want to tell is.

Thank you for the interpretation!!! I understood what you mean and thanks for explaining! I also noticed that sometimes readers have different purpose (let's say in tomato cobbler). I'm curious more what's in it besides tomatoes and how they look like in close up rather than whole look of styling. But if this is some kind of Japanese food, I can imagine more and at least I don't need so much details. Thank you for the response! It's always fun to learn something new and there is a place I can ask questions regarding photography!!! :-)